50 Uses For A Penny

[jeffrey]

It's up to all of you as to whether I win or lose a bet I was talking with a good friend the other day and he said that the penny was now useless. I said that I bet the people from this forum could come up with 50 or more ways that a penny can be used.

So have at it. List all the ways that you can think of that you can still use a penny.

If I lose the bet I owe him a dinner and if I win I get a dinner so I'm counting on all of you

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Well these may not be the sort of thing you have in mind but---

-Put them on a railroad track to let a train flatten them into nice little oblong shingles for a cute backyard bird house.

-Amaze and spark a kid's first interest in chemistry by dropping the dirty pennies into a saucer of vinegar with table salt stirred in. See how the grimy oxidation disappears right before your eyes, leaving bright copper.

-Use one for leverage to pry off the lid from a difficult "Line-up-the-arrows" childproof aspirin bottle.

-Over a concrete surface, holding the penny with a pliers or tinsnip, melt one with a torch and see how it drips to the ground, nearly cools before it hits the ground, then instantly forms a beautiful shiny, silver color foil (because of the inner content of the penny!) as it spreads on the concrete, a lacy foil which does not get stuck to the concrete.

-Slip one under the vase that sits a little bit wobbly to steady it--like a table with a matchbook under one leg.

-Tape one to the tail of your kite for a little more stabilizing wieght.

-Teach your toddler to count with them.

--Teach your little bit older child a little culture/history by looking in the dictionary to find that the USA coin is only called a "penny" in slang, that its proper name is "cent."

Use as an impromptu screw driver in wide slotted bolt.

[catlinye_maker]

Use a penny to trace around to make small circles for crafts (applique, scrapbooking.)

Stuff pennies into your change jar and cash in every so often (my last cash out netted me $260, and the teller who took the coins told me his uncle bought a Corvette with saved-up change!)

Use a penny to scratch off lottery tickets (okay, maybe not on this forum.)

Use pennies to make sculpture: penny towers

[greedy4chips]

One use of a penny may actually not count since it requires 3-4 pennies.

In college we used to penny someone into there room by forcing 3-4 stacked together between the door and doorjam. It would put so much pressure on the part of the latch that goes into the doorjam and they could not open it.

We use pennies to raise up the candle in our butter warmers.

[tinapbeana]

old wives tale: it's good luck to place a penny over every doorway when you move into a home or apartment

self-defense: a sock full of pennies

penny poker

wishing wells

collecting (there are actually lots of rare pennies floating around, most people don't look at them)

from DH: when working on an old lawn mower, rubbing a penny between the points (or condenser) on the engine will help them conduct better, therefore making them easier to start

classic: penny behind a fuse in the fuse box

from DH: gangsters used to remove the buckshot from a shotgun shell and fill them up with coins (so not specific to pennies but can work). DH's report is that this will cause some serious damage. at least to a road sign

use to make crafts/jewelry (in argentina i bought an ashtray where the cigarette rests were made of bent 1 centavo pieces).

[momof1in150]

Check the tread on your tires. If you can see Lincoln's head then the tires need to be replaced.

[y26]

if you have $999.99. Add the penny and your at $1000. $1000 sounds alot better to me

[Ima saver]

Use pennies to see how many times you go up and down the stairs each day. I aim for 20 flights a day or 20 pennies!

[MonkeyMama]

We just got a remote control that takes a penny (well a coin - but seems to be made for a penny) to open the battery compartment.

[MonkeyMama]

To scratch lottery tickets

[Lori63]

Use to flip to see which side starts the soccer game.

[catlinye_maker]

Pennies can be used to increase the pH of soil for hydrangeas, according to hydrageasplus.com.

[disneysteve]

We always carry nice shiny pennies to use in penny presses when we travel to Disney World and other attractions to make souvenirs. You insert a penny and 2 quarters and the press elongates the coin into an oval and a die presses an image onto the metal.

I must admit, though, that my main use for pennies is saving them in a bank on my dresser and periodically taking them over to Commerce Bank to have them counted and converted into paper money.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Uht-oh. I don't think we've gotten to zero. Hopefully it isn't dinner time where you are.

-Add a penny to a nickel to get the sales tax paid when I buy a single item at the dollar store in the town southwest of mine. (I need to have two pennies with the nickel in my own town.)

-Throw handfuls of them to the crowd of spectators at a parade.

-Superglue a penny over the spring-loaded latch on the cabinet that I do not want to close with a catch.

-Mix them into the grab bag of Halloween candy for trick or treators on Oct. 31.

-Nail through one when you need to spread the holding force of the nailhead over a greater area.

-Spin one on the table for entertainment while waiting for your slow order at Denny's.

-Toss one into the deep end of the pool and challenge the kids to dive and bring it up.

-Drill a hole through opposite edges of many pennies and string them together to make a little rainchain.

-Put them all around vulnerable garden seedlings to repel slugs. The folklore is that slugs touching copper will experience a tiny electric shock as electrons are exchanged between slimy slug and copper.

-Find one heads up to have good luck.

-Prompt your backstabbing workmate to pick up the one that is tails side up on the sidewalk so that he will have bad luck.

-Place one on your loved one's grave to let them know you have been there and think of them.

-Use one as inspriation for song. "Pennies...pennies from heaven."

-Visit another country and take a penny to your host's child for the novelty of foreign coinage.

-Use a small collection of pennies to entertain a young child by encouraging them make designs with the pennies.

-Sew them onto your belt to decorate it.

-Place them in the hems of your draperies to make them hang smoothly. (When I was a kid drapes had little plates of lead to do that!)

-Play penny-pitch with them (did someone already say this?)

-Put one on the back of your hand. Quickly drop your hand downward while turn it over to catch the penny on the flat plam of your hand. Reverse the action to catch it on the back of your hand.

-Get a big silky scarf and rubber band a penny into each of its corners. Then, hold the penny-corners together, and roll up the scarf ocer the pennies. Thrown it as high into the air as you can! Then watch the scarf float slowly down like a parachute.

-Pour a patio and put one penny for each of your kids into a discrete spot beofre the concrete sets. Pennies should be dated with the birth years of the kids. Tell them these are their pennies, but that you did not want them to spend it easily.

-Wrap one or more in electrical tape to make a heavier "corkball" for that baseball like game.

-Put one or more inside an empty salt box, taping the openning closed to make a rhythm toy for young kids.

-Demonstrate transfer of energy by making a short line of them on a table, then slide one penny forcefully onto the end of the line. See how at the far end of the line one penny then scoots away from the rest of the line.

-Roll one down one of those cool parabolic funnels that send the penny spiralling around and around and around, downward, until it final falls down the middle chute.

-Put one or more inside a couple of faoil pie pans taped together to make different sounding rhthym toy. I guess we could bring this all the way up to 50 by suggesting enough different items to put pennies into to shake and jangle along with the music.

-Jangle? I've got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle..... bend two of those pennies we put on the rail road track. pierce a hole through them and also through a third flattend but unbent penny. Stack the pennies together over a paperclipe with the flat one in the middle. Slip a piece of string through the opposite end of the paperclip and tie around your kid's ankle so she can pretend she has spurs. Might go well with one of those broomstick horses.

-Let your child thow them into the garden to magically find agin next spring. It as if the fairies seeded the garden with pennies, even though the child knows they did it themselves. A neighbor child used to do this, throwing them from her second floor window.

-See if one will cling to the end of your nose without having to tilt your head back.

-Put one into the slots of your penny loafer.

-Ask someone much older than yourself what kinds of things a penny used to buy.

-Find a place that still sells penny candy and buy a piece!

-Quintuple your money: Find someone who is willing to give you a nickel for your penny!

-See how far you can roll a penny down a hard floored hallway.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

-Oh, and give someone a penny for their thoughts.

[simpleyme]

we needed brass washers to help rehang some loose gingerbread (fancy woodwork) on our house
we were going to go gets some when our neighbor told us to not waste money but to drill holes in pennies and use them instead

since brass washers cost about 4 cents each and pennies cost -well a penny

[disneysteve]

Did anyone mention tossing them in fountains to make wishes? That doubles as a charitable donation.

[Gruntina]

Use pennies for financial education. If you start with one penny on day one of a given month and double that amount everyday, how many you end up with on the last day of the month? This is a wowser amount for those who do not know.

A penny says "In God we Trust". Every time I pick up a penny, I pray for the military and those serving in our government... Otherwise I just complain about them instead of praying for help.

[vsjhoc]

Originally Posted by Gruntina

Use pennies for financial education. If you start with one penny on day one of a given month and double that amount everyday, how many you end up with on the last day of the month? This is a wowser amount for those who do not know.

If it's a 31-day month: $10,737,418.24
If it's a 30-day month: $5,368,709.12

[Elgin526]

-Use it in a toll booth in IL, they still take pennies!
-As a spacer when laying tile.
-Donate to charities that leave change jars near cash registers, those collecting at intersections, or Salvation Army at Christmas. All those pennies add up!

That's all I can think of right now, I'll post again if I think of some more!